EXHIBITION
Pharaoh
2024
VENUE
YEAR
Studio Peter King was commissioned by NGV to develop the exhibition design for Pharaoh - an exhibition presented as the 20th edition of the Melbourne Winter Masterpiece series and the single largest ancient Egyptian exhibition ever mounted in Australia. Developed in partnership with the British Museum, the exhibition presents over five hundred objects, ranging from monumental sculpture to exquisite jewellery.
Exhibited across the entire ground floor of NGV International, the exhibition design evokes the architectural qualities of ancient temples and palaces through form, lighting and material, translating these qualities into a contemporary design experience.
Client: National Gallery of Victoria
Curators: Miranda Wallace, Amanda Dunsmore
in partnership with Marie Vandenbeusch, Kelly Accetta Crowe
Exhibition Design: Studio Peter King
Exhibition Identity: 3Deep
Multimedia Design: NGV
Exhibition Graphic Design: NGV
Build: Savio Projects, Higgins and Show Works
Photos by Sean Fennessey & Tom Ross.
Video courtesy of NGV.
Design Illustration by Studio Peter King.
“As an exhibition, it makes good use of scale. It recognises that the eye is greedy for monumental statues and towering sarcophagi, but then – through sophisticated staging by exhibition designer Peter King – skilfully directs attention to smaller, more intricate pieces.
Some spaces are sparse, expansive, lit warmly as though bathed in desert sunlight. Others are narrowed down through the use of partitions and dim lighting, recalling the shadowy interior of a tomb.
The scenography gives breathing space to artefacts that are breathtaking for their size and physical presence: a remarkably intact life-sized sculpture of Pharaoh Sety II, a phalanx of 10 lion-headed statues representing the goddess Sekhmet, an intricately decorated coffin base made for the afterlife of a temple doorkeeper. Wall projections offer glimpses of the sky in different aspects and undulating waters suggestive of the Nile, grounding the exhibition in a sense of place.”
—NADIA BAILEY
The Age - June 13, 2024
Excerpt from the exhibition text:
“The design of Pharaoh takes visitors on a journey from day to night. Exhibition designer Peter King has employed lighting, colour, material textures and architectural forms to suggest different times of day: pre-dawn and early morning, midday, late afternoon, dusk and night. This evokes both the passage of time and the ancient Egyptians’ reverence for the sun, associated with Ra, the sun-god. Ra journeyed each day across the sky from east to west in his sacred boat before descending to the underworld, sailing through the twelve hours of night before his rebirth to a new life and a new day each morning.
The room you have just left, which introduced the pharaoh as both concept and through selected representations, was designed as a pre-dawn space, where change and continuity coexist – just as they did throughout ancient Egypt’s 3000-year history. The story of Pharaoh begins in the next room, with metaphorical rays of sunlight marking the dawn and the divine birth of the pharaoh. The exhibition ends in darkness, as night falls and the pharaoh begins the journey to the afterlife and eternal life.”
—MIRANDA WAllace and Amanda Dunsmore
SENIOR CURATOR, INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION PROJECTS
SENIOR CURATOR, INTERNATIONAL DECORATIVE ARTS & ANTIQUITIES
“Walking through this exhibition, one is constantly aware that is it presented in a gallery – rather than a museum – setting. Exhibition design, and the viewer experience, are just as key to this exhibition’s success as the objects themselves…
The exhibition has been eight years in the making, led by British Museum’s Curator Funerary Culture of the Nile Valley, Marie Vandenbeusch. Exhibition designer Peter King (Studio Peter King, aka the designer behind the success of Melbourne Now, Escher x nendo and Dior), was brought on two years ago to help navigate viewers through the layered narrative.
The exhibition is broken into eight thematic streams, moving beyond mere kings to everyday Egypt and the life of the skilled craftspeople, to diplomacy and political life, to eternal life.
The exhibition has the energy and pace of discovery – one walks down architectural vistas with shafts of light and great height, then pops into tomb-like spaces revealing treasures. And, as one weaves (and delightfully gets lost) through the progression of rooms, the use of light subtly shifts from night to day. It almost has a cinematic quality.
Mirrors and cut-through windows, allow visitors to view the objects from multiple, and surprising angles, always drawing you deeper into the exhibition’s treasures.”
—GINA FAIRLEY
ArtsHub - June 19, 2024
“NGV designer Peter King has conceived the exhibition as a journey from dawn to night. The lighting, wall textures and colours are subtly calibrated to match this conceit as we travel from darkness to light and back again. Between galleries, we walk down long, dark corridors towards an illuminated portal as if we were entering or leaving a tomb.
One of the most breathtaking galleries is the colour of a swimming pool, complete with aqueous flickers on the walls, reflected from a series of shiny, wavy columns. It’s only when we begin to explore that we realise each column is also a vitrine laden with jewellery.”